Criminal; Sufficiency of the Evidence; Expert Witnesses; Whether the
Evidence was Insufficient to Establish that Defendant was Guilty of Promoting a
Minor in an Obscene Performance; Whether State's Expert Witness Improperly
Expressed an Opinion as to an Ultimate Issue of Fact. The defendant was
charged with several sexual offenses in connection with his alleged physical
and sexual abuse of the minor complainant. At trial, the complainant testified
that the defendant had forced her to engage in certain sexual activities with
mice, rats and balloons, including, among other things, an act known as
"crushing," whereby the defendant would make her crush rodents with
various parts of her body. She also testified that he videotaped her engaging
in such activities, and two such videos were admitted into evidence. The state
also introduced the testimony of a child abuse pediatrician, Nina Livingston, who
opined that the complainant "had suffered an extensive history of severe
maltreatment by [the defendant]" and that she had endured "multiple
types of psychological abuse." Livingston also testified that the
complainant's "reports that she had genital pain and bleeding suggested
that she suffered significant tissue injury at the time of the sexual abuse"
and that "the maltreatment she suffered was life threatening as it led to
[a] suicide attempt." Over the defendant's objection on relevancy grounds,
the trial court also admitted certain uncharged misconduct evidence, namely,
the testimony of two females who both claimed that the defendant had forced
them to engage in crushing activities. The court ultimately found the
defendant guilty of sexual assault, risk of injury to a minor and promoting a
minor in an obscene performance. In this appeal, the defendant argues that the
evidence was insufficient to establish that he was guilty of promoting a minor
in an obscene performance in violation of General Statutes § 53a-196b. He
claims that the two videos that were admitted into evidence, which displayed
the complainant crushing mice with her toes, merely depicted an act of animal cruelty,
not a "prohibited sexual act" as required by § 53a-196b and General
Statutes § 53a-193 (2). He also maintains that, in essentially testifying that
he had sexually and psychologically abused the complainant, Livingston
improperly expressed an opinion as to an ultimate issue of fact and bolstered
the credibility of the complainant. His final claim is that the trial court
improperly admitted the uncharged misconduct evidence. He maintains that
although the evidence involved crushing activities, the uncharged misconduct did
not satisfy the required level of similarity to justify the admission of the
evidence to prove that he had a propensity to engage in the type of criminal
sexual behavior with which he was charged.